Father's Day invitations
I make custom father's day invitations, personalised from an existing design for $65 or designed from scratch, then deliver everything as digital files.
The one occasion where most of the people involved would quietly prefer you made less of it, which changes what the card should do.
$65
Your details set by hand, usually back the same day. $145 to rebuild it in your own colours.
Father's Day gatherings are usually smaller and blunter than the May equivalent, and a lot of the men being celebrated actively dislike being the centre of anything. So the card earns its place by being useful rather than sentimental. A short line, a real start time, and something concrete about the plan reads as respect. A page of feeling reads as a demand to perform gratitude in front of relatives.
The practical detail matters more here than on almost any other family card, because the day competes with a tee time, a ball game and everybody else's in-laws. Give a start and an end. Say who is cooking, because unless you write it down he will end up at the grill at his own lunch. If several households are converging, say what each one is bringing on the card rather than in four separate texts.
There is also a version of this that does not name the holiday at all. For anyone who has lost a father, or is not speaking to one, or has spent years in fertility treatment, "burgers at ours Sunday at two" invites the whole family without asking anybody to mark the date. That wording is available on request and nobody has ever regretted choosing it.
What changes for this one
Restraint does the work. Heavy type, a lot of white space, no bunting and nothing shaped like a tie. If children are giving it, a single drawing scanned in beats any illustration I could add, and I will build the layout around it. Set the time in the largest type after the name.
When to send
Two weeks out is enough for local family, three if anybody is flying. Send it earlier than feels necessary if the date lands on a sports weekend, because the conflict you find out about a fortnight ahead is fixable and the one you find out about on the Friday is not.
Colours that work
Ink, bone and one muted accent. Slate blue, olive, oxblood or warm rust all work. It should look like a good notecard rather than a party invitation.
Questions people ask about father's day invitations
He hates a fuss. Is an invitation the wrong idea?
Not if it behaves like a plan rather than a tribute. The men who dislike the fuss usually still like knowing exactly what is happening and when. Keep it to the time, the place, the food and one warm line, and it lands.
Can you leave the holiday off it?
Yes, and I do it often. It gets used by families where the day is painful, and by anyone who would rather just call it Sunday lunch. Same design, the date does the work and the occasion goes unnamed.
We are celebrating a grandfather and two dads at once. How is that worded?
Name the gathering, not the honourees. Something like "lunch for the dads" covers everyone in the room including the step-parents, which a list of names never quite manages to do without someone noticing the order.
How is this different from your Mother's Day design?
Register and hierarchy. Mother's Day cards are often the gift and get kept, so they carry a longer message. These are working invitations: plainer type, more logistics, less illustration, and the time set larger than anything else.
320
US searches a month for father's day invitations, measured rather than guessed.
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How to have this made
Custom invitation design
Designed from nothing for one event. No template underneath.
From $285
Digital and paperless invitations
Designed to be texted, emailed or posted. Not an Evite template.
From $225
Start with a First Look
$45 for one finished concept designed for your event, back in three days. It comes off whatever you book, and if you do not love it you keep the file and owe nothing.